From: Tom Hanks (no, not that one—I just retired from Baylor’s English Department, and Calleigh asked me to send you a note)

​Dear Colleague-to-be at Baylor,

You probably don’t know me, though you may see me walking about the campus in the weeks to come (I’ll be wearing a hat—not a cap but a hat. Not many of us left . . .). Having taught at Baylor for 41 years, I’ve met and talked with many first-year students. I’ve also read a lot about the process of having a good—even EXCELLENT—first year at college.

Here are some tips I’ve observed or found elsewhere concerning one major element in your success at Baylor:

1. Realize that you have exactly 24 hours in a day—not a second more. How you use those hours will either result in a pleasant, successful year or in a waste of time when you neither enjoyed yourself nor produced anything worth your time. Time, I say again—Kipling says that if we can fill each hour with sixty seconds’-worth of distance run, we’ll be successful. That does NOT mean that you must be studying every hour of the day. Here’s what I suggest:

For each day, sleep at least 7 hours. If you cut back on sleep—and you may decide that you need 8 hours, not 7—if you cut back on your sleep, you will quickly arrive at diminishing returns. Sleeping in class is not only unpleasant for the teacher and even for the other students (you might snore); it robs you of the benefit of the interaction between student and class colleagues (including the teacher). Get enough sleep, then, is my first suggestion. Let’s say 8 hours of the 24 are now covered.

Second after sleep: I strongly recommend that you get enough exercise. 45 minutes a day jogging, swimming, or simply briskly walking, will bleed off stress and help you to sleep better at night. Counting getting into shorts exercising, then showering, this adds up to, let’s say, 1 ½ hours daily. So far, then, more than a third—9 1/2 hours of your 24—is gone.

What comes in at third place? I suggest to you—my colleagues on the faculty may be alarmed at my priorities—I suggest to you that you schedule into each day an hour to an hour and a half simply for visiting with, and conversing with, your friends. If you don’t have any friends here yet, then the dorm, or classes, or even chance encounters, will provide some opportunities. How to do this if you are new and alone here? You can easily find new friends at a local church, temple, or mosque (more about religion below); Your dorm, I repeat, is a source. Finally, you may want to look into one, or at most two, student activities: a social organization, a neighborhood project, etc., and you can find almost all student activities listed here: http://www.baylor.edu/studentactivities/organizations/index.php?id=74702 If you’ve been counting, you see that you have now spent about 11 hours of your day.

I mentioned church, temple, or mosque earlier; many first-year students have left a church community behind them, and feel uncomfortable seeking a new one. So they don’t. Others just get tied up in studies, activities, and socializing, and decide that they don’t have time to join a faith community here. Also—the church of My Pillow looks awfully good on a Sunday morning. I’m not interested in guilting you; I do suggest, though, that if you’re not growing in your personal faith tradition, they you’re either stagnant or even losing ground. I’m a college minister in a Waco church, so I have a clear bias; I know that I find growth in my church community, and I think that you can find not only growth but enjoyment (and new friends) in yours. If you do Sunday school and church, let’s say that you spend—on a Sunday—four hours, counting travel time. Averaged out across the week, that means that you’ve just subtracted about a half-hour from each day—so you’re now down to 11 ½ hours gone from your 24, leaving you 12 ½.

What do you do with the 12 ½ hours left over? Well—you knew this was coming. STUDY. Read, review, go over notes, ATTEND EVERY CLASS, and—if you want to be super-prepared—each day ask yourself, “What did I learn today, and how might my teachers want to test if I’ve learned it?” Write down your answers. If you learned nothing, then either you’re a dullard or your classes are not worth your time: reconsider.

How is your time coming? Well, on the average day, you will have, let’s say, either two classes (TTh) or three classes (MWF). That comes to 4 ½ hours (TTH) plus 6 hours (MWF): 10 ½ hours per week, or 2 hours daily averaged out over 5 days. You now have 10 ½ hours left in your average day.

You will usually need to study about 1 ½ hours for every hour you spend in class: that’s another 16 hours per week, or 3 1/3 hours per day spent outside of class, studying. That leaves you 6 ½ hours per day.

For each day, you’ll need 3 hours for meals, and another 1 and ½ hours just for trucking from one class to another, or to meals, etc. You’re now down to 5 hours per day left for you to do with as you will.

​All this will actually work for you IF you’re mindful of your time. If you’re not—and I know that I have to start such mindfulness immediately, or I lose out—you won’t learn as much as you could, and you won’t have as much fun as you could, and you won’t be fulfilling the obligations you have taken on from family, friends, financial institutions, and—most of all—your obligation to yourself. “In everything you do, study to show yourself approved unto God.” Not a bad watch-word.

Godspeed, and good luck, colleague. I hope to see you on campus.

Tom Hanks

Dr. Hanks is the rarest kind of gem - the kind who stands up when you enter a room, and tips his hat at you when he sees you on campus. He's truly a joy to know. Dr. Hanks leads the college class at Lake Shore Baptist church, complete with orange juice and a smattering of donuts. ​

Ah, yes. The age-old pageantry. Baylor students discover “Wow! There really is more to life than drowning myself homework and telling everyone how I’m going to change the world with my Pre-Med focus!” That’s right, it’s Late Night.

You may not even know what I’m talking about. Well, let me tell you. Late Night is the one-stop shop for all of your Baylor extracurricular needs.

This place has everything, and I mean everything. You’re gonna have the opportunity to hear from over 300 student organizations, and in case you did not know, that is a big number of organizations. Without a guide to help you, it would be very difficult to find everything that you want.

If only there were some guide to help you figure out how to tackle Late Night...

I’m David. And I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about navigating Late Night.

The Tools:

Before any excellent journey, you should properly equip yourself with what you will need. ​This is a good list to start off:

Some bag of sorts. Listen, everyone and their mother will be wanting you to join their club, and the way they get their name out is handing things to you. By the end of the night you are going to have a boatload of flyers, pencils, fidget spinners, locally-raised produce, and assorted jambalaya to carry around. Do yourself a favor and bring a bag.

A well-charged phone. It’s a good idea to take pictures of posters from different organizations to keep track of their information. Also, you never know what sort of crazy shenanigans you’ll get yourself into, so it’s a good idea to have a full battery on your phone so you can stay connected and communicated.

An open mind. Yadda yadda, you’ve heard it before, you never know what you’re going to be interested in at college. Well, it’s true. You could walk up to a random booth and find your entire college future ahead of you in the form of a simple flyer. And it’ll catch you by surprise. So go to every booth, and don’t be afraid to check out new things.

5 Buildings, 1 Destiny - The Journey Itself

Alright, so what exactly are we doing and where are we going? Well, here we go. Let’s start our journey at - ​

The SUB

​We start here because it is the most diverse locale of the 5 Late Night Stops.It’s got three floors of way too much to look at. At the SUB, you will find a smorgasbord of organizations. On the first floor, you’ll be looking mostly at multicultural organizations and political organizations, which are always super fun and typically have the best giveaways. Once you get up to the second floor, you’ll find every nerdy-science organization known to man in the large Barfield Drawing Room. There are side rooms in the wings where you can find a variety of other organizations (I’ll be there with The Whatever, so come say wassup). And on the third floor they have even more organizations, usually pre-med and ecology stuff.

Side note: There are a lot of organizations, and there are going to be a lot which you are interested. It is, of course, impossible to be a part of every organization. But this is the best piece of advice I can give you: sign up on the list for anything and everything you are interested in. It is always a better idea to start with a wide range of options than a limited range. You can always unsubscribe from a text or email list later, but it's best to keep your options open from the onset.

So we’ve hit the SUB. Walk out, and across that big piece of grass (it’s called Fountain Mall, by the way) and you will find -

Moody Library

​Nerds, this one is for you. Every literary society, student publication (newspaper and yearbook), and other fun things await you at the library. Even if you aren’t into these sort of things, I urge you to go. You never know what’s gonna happen. You could be picking up a flyer and BOOM there it hits you! Your life’s passion! Okay that won’t happen to everyone, but hey, free stuff.

Once you have finished with the library, you walk down the street past the Energy Center (loud building with fans and such) to find -

Russell Gymnasium

Okay Greek folks, here you go. This is where every official sorority and fraternity will be set up. The gym is packed with booths, and it can be intimidating, but do not fear. There are plenty of people there who want to talk to you. Now, even if you’re not sure if Greek Life is your thing, I still urge you to check it out. You can learn a lot about different organizations and you may discover one that is suited just for you.

So we leave the gymnasium and continue on our path to -

The SLC

​You should know where this is, if you’ve ever been on a campus tour, but here’s another special tip: they have food. That’s right. Walk in through the volleyball court, and there will be a line of food and drink provided for you to enjoy. Grab a slice of pizza, drink some water, and prepare for some crazy organizations. People kayaking in the pool, contests and giveaways in the racquetball rooms, and random objects being flung off the balcony for you to catch are just a few of the things you can expect from the SLC. You’ll also find tons of active organizations, from Outdoor Adventure to Health and Wellness to Quidditch. This place has it all, and you’ll need a decent chunk of time to check it all out.After emerging from the jungle of people that is the SLC, you have one last stop!

The Bobo

The Bobo is two doors down from Waco Hall, and has plenty of spiritual life organizations for you to look into. You could be looking for certain religious organizations like the Catholic Student Association, a campus ministry where you can grow in your spiritual walk with others, or even a choir that you’d like to join! The Bobo has got it, and you won’t want to miss that.Tired but rejuvenated, you have completed your campus journey. Your bag full of fliers and your mind full of ideas, you are ready to become a member of the Baylor experience. I urge you to spend your time during and after Late Night thinking out your schedule, what it looks like, and how the organizations you hear from could become a major part of your life at Baylor.Good luck. I’d love to hear from you about your own late night experience, and I could give you a couple more hints and tricks. Just lemme know. You got it, kid. Your whole college is ahead of you. Dream big, and do bigger.

David is our resident dad-joke-maker, meme lover, and football fanatic. If you ever need a sports question answered, you can find him hosting Bear Down with the Sic 'Em Squad on BU Radio this fall. He loves his pizza like he likes his jokes - with lots of cheese. If you want an explanation about Helen Keller finger puppets, you can ask him here!​

Ah move in day; there’s no other university that I know of that does something quite like this (if you do know of one don’t squander my happiness). But what exactly is Move2BU? You’ve seen the happy looking brochure that makes it look like everything will be smooth sailing the day you move in

Well it can be- if you read the directions carefully and follow the rules. Sure, your fellow bears take a load off of you hands, carry your stuff to your 6th floor-end-of-the-hall dorm room (I’m looking at you Collins). But what happens during this time?Let me break it down for you:

Before you arrive:

You’ll be directed through Baylor’s confusing color coordinated map

Don’t turn the wrong way (they’ll change some of the roads into one-ways only).

Come at your scheduled time. ​

This may all seem hectic, but it works, if everyone arrives at their allotted time. You’ll probably get into back-seat-driver arguments with Mom and Dad, but that’s okay. This is all part of the experience.

When you pull up:

Expect a swarm of people around your car, waiting for you to unlock your doors.

Don’t get out of the car.

Don’t turn the car off. ​

The driver will be getting these same instructions, but this is important to keep the flow of traffic moving as quickly as possible. You will then be directed to park in a nearby parking garage or the Ferrell Center parking. Shuttles will be driving around the perimeter of campus so if the only parking space you could find was on the other side of campus from your dorm, Baylor’s got you covered.A NOTE ABOUT VALUED POSSESSIONS: If you have something you DON’T want the volunteers to take; physically hold on to it, lay your body across it, and don’t let go.

Why take these drastic measures? All boxes look the same after a while, and the volunteers are going at a quick pace to keep the line moving. So they might not pay close attention to a box marked do not take.

When you get to your room:

Expect your CL to drop by and introduce themselves.

Do your online room inspection or you’ll forget to do it and take a nap instead (definitely not speaking from experience).

Get ready to make a Wal-Mart or HEB trip for those last few things you forgot. To lessen the chances of this, check out my dude, David’s, awesome post.

As if there weren’t enough things to do during move in, your Welcome Week leaders will stop by your room to give you your welcome package (which is actually a really neat thing full of fun coupons and stickers). ​

Welp, that’s all I got for ya folks. Now double and triple check that college essentials 101 list and get ready for the best move in experience you’ll ever have!Disclaimer: Remember kids, you have to move yourself out. So be kind to your future self and don’t pack half a house.

Sydney is our resident coffee expert and Muse lover. If she's not live streaming a Muse concert, you can probably find her making coffee. She hates puns but loves her people - so don't be afraid to give her a shout!​